Finding Favorites with Leah Jones
Finding Favorites is where we learn about people’s favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. Every other week, host Leah Jones sits down with a guest to learn about how they found their favorite thing, why they love it and why they think other people will fall in love, too.
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Episodes
Sunday Oct 25, 2020
Sunday Oct 25, 2020
Joanna QL, author of The Seasonal Table: Winter, loves all forms of making and crafting. Whether it's cooking, sewing, wood burning or massive home projects - she's your go to person! We talk about her Ayurvedic training, a new cookbook and then dive deep on where her love of making comes from. She also has a warning for people running Zooms with kids - watch out for the Motion Sickness Opera and advises that we adults laugh it off when it happens.
Episode Links
The Seasonal Table: Winter
Seasonable Table Merch (including spice packs and tea towels)
Follow Joanna on Twitter to learn about Zoom cook-alongs
Go deep in the archives for Writing the Rails videos with David Kav
Proof that Amtrak caught up to us with a Writing the Rails fellowship for authors
Become a citizen scientist with Sci Starter
Martin Atkins from Pigface is a professor at my alma mater
Saturday Oct 24, 2020
Saturday Oct 24, 2020
Shai and I went down a winding path during our CATS episode about close-up magic, movies about magic and the Magic Castle in LA. Somebody invite us both when all of this is over, please.
Chicago Magic Lounge
Magic Castle
David Copperfield disappeared the Statue of Liberty
Sunday Oct 18, 2020
Sunday Oct 18, 2020
Shai Korman, from Friday Night Movie Podcast and the Goldnerds, joined me to talk about his devotion to the musical CATS. We do talk about the How Did This Get Made livestream show about CATS a fair amount, but I think we limited the inside baseball to a low roar.
Show Links
Follow Shai on Twitter and Instagram
Femmebot PhD: CATS One Person Show - CAT
The Amazing Alexander - "it was better than Cats, I will see it again and again."
Beautiful Ghosts lost to Shallow by Lady Gaga in the 2019 Oscars (but not being submitted to compete at all)
Everyday Sunshine: The story of Fishbone
Mantzoukas-Fest on Friday Night Movie Pod
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Adrienne Ciskey, aka @solarpowerspork, has been playing Sims for 20 years and is only recently willing to talk about her love of the game in public. She walked me through the different types of players, things that The Sims is famous for, what she hopes for the future of the gaming franchise and how The Sims can teach us to build a more equitable world.
Links
Lift Every Voice and Sing arranged by Jarrett Johnson (fellow Millikin grad)
Hey Harrie is on Patreon and YouTube with custom builds and mods
Jim Pickins on YouTube is The Sims + Comedy
Freezer Bunny is an architect
Plum Bella livestreams on Twitch and YouTube
Devon Bumpkin has a very nice Twitch community
Electronic Arts statement on #BlackLivesMatter
Sunday Oct 04, 2020
Sunday Oct 04, 2020
As the saying goes, "teach a girl to propagate a cactus and she'll eat fish for a lifetime." That's not the saying, but Whitney Wasson, who makes jokes for a living, joined me from her plant-filled Uptown apartment to talk about what it takes to keep all sorts of plants thriving during a quarantine. We also talk about the business of stand-up comedy, sobriety and the theory of dumbbell maps. Just this week she released a Sober Rabbit coloring book that you can grab in her Big Cartel shop.
Link round-up!
Whitney on Twitter
Sober Rabbit - on Instagram, Big Cartel, Patreon and Threadless
Rachel Lynett Theater Company
Adams and Sons in Chicago
Jackie and Laurie Show
How to care for your moss balls
Saturday Oct 03, 2020
Saturday Oct 03, 2020
Show and tells don't always translate to podcasts, so here is the tour that Whitney Wasson gave me of her houseplants - which includes Shamrocks, bunny cactus and scallions.
Follow Whitney everywhere!
Saturday Sep 26, 2020
Saturday Sep 26, 2020
In the full length episode of my interview with Keidra Chaney, I deleted a 10-minute segment of us oohing and aahing while we looked at Instagram. It was some of the most fun we had during our interview and so here's the clip. Hit up #KPopDollstagram on Instagram and scroll for cuteness.
Here are some of the specific dolls that we adored during our chat.
Knitted French and English overalls
Going to school in tiny backpacks
Danity as a dinosaur
A "side by side"
Friday Sep 25, 2020
Friday Sep 25, 2020
Keidra Chaney, known to most of us as @kdc, is the co-founder of The Learned Fangirl and the person who introduced me to KPop music as I followed her trips to Japan to see a band called Shinee. In this episode we talk about KPop fandom as a whole, but then do a deep dive on #KPopDollstagram - the Instagram hashtag you are going to love before the episodes ends.
Episode Links
Fan Studies Network
Nami Amuro
The 'K-pop fans will save us' narrative misses the bigger social justice picture
Shinee's big hats
KeidraDChaney.com
@KDC on Twitter
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Adam Phelps, owner of Ghostwood Farms and an instructor at Lee's Martial Arts, loves Hapkido and martial arts. He was also the college radio DJ that Leah listened to every Sunday night in high school. This episode is mostly about martial arts and coming to martial arts as an adult, but also about music, COVID and farming.
Related Links
Lee's Martial Arts Bloomington (for Wednesday classes with Adam)
Ghostwood Farm
Neko Case on 3 Questions with Andy Richter
Neko Case on NPR Tiny Desk Concert
Billie Eilish on Carpool Karaoke
Adaptive ballroom dance with Vital Zinger
Monday Sep 07, 2020
Monday Sep 07, 2020
Steve Higgins is an award-winning English professor at Lewis and Clark who loves all things Doctor Who. We had a lovely conversation about how he first found the Doctor on two local PBS stations near St. Louis and rediscovered the Doctor in a clearance bin at a record shop.
Follow Steve on Twitter and Tik Tok where he does one minute poetry lessons.
Related Links
BroaDWcast.org
David Steel: The Power of 3 Podcast
Ink and Drink Comics
Comic Nurse: Taking Turns and Menopause
Pluto TV Classic Doctor Who Station
Party Animals on BBC
Thank you to fellow Millikin alumna Denise Meyerkord for introducing Steve and I for this conversation!
Finding Favorites with Leah Jones
Everyone loves something. A hobby, a musician, an artist, a book genre - everyone has a favorite thing and this is the podcast where we hear the stories.
How did you discover your favorite thing? What do you love about it? Who have you met through it? How would someone sample your favorite thing?
At Finding Favorites, we get recommendations without using an algorithm.
Hosted by Leah Jones